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Article
Earned Wings : Managed Health Air A group of volunteer pilots brings medical care to the neediest cases of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. By: Cristina VelocciAugust/Sept 07 , Page 26
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In the rural town of Jesús Maria, Mexico, 80 percent of the population lacks health care, including a 13-year-old girl named Jasmine who has a growth in her mouth that has started to swell. Left untreated, this baseball-sized tumor is in danger of affecting her jaw, teeth, sinuses, and eyes and could eventually kill her. Thankfully, none of this will happen — at least not if the Flying Samaritans, a 2,000-strong group of dedicated volunteer pilots, nurses, doctors, dentists and translators, has anything to say about it. Focused on the Baja peninsula, the 45-year-old organization opened and operates 18 clinics scattered throughout the region. Once a month, volunteers from Arizona, California and Mexico fly their own aircraft — mostly Cessnas, Pipers and Bonanzas — to provide up to 1,800 patients per month free medical care that they otherwise could not afford. “These people use what little money they have to feed themselves,” says Yehoram Uziel, the nonprofit’s president, an avid pilot himself. “Health care is a luxury.” As a result, Uziel sees people nearly killed by easily treatable illnesses, such as ear infections, cough and the flu. “You walk around these areas and take a look at the people, and they look much older than their peers in the U.S.,” he says. “A 40-year-old woman looks 65.”
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